The present invention relates to the detection of alcohol in a human and more particularly to methods and means for such detection.
The detection of blood alcohol levels in human beings has been achieved by various methods and for different purposes.
For law enforcement the determination of blood alcohol levels has been essential for the prosecution of various offences particularly highway driving offences where the suspect may be impaired.
For general medical purposes it is frequently essential for the physicians to make an objective determination of the alcohol blood level of a patient to determine the health of the patient and/or the appropriate treatment.
Sometimes the purposes overlap such as in a highway traffic accident However, irrespective of the purposes, in the latter situation where the patient is critically ill the measurement of the alcohol blood level is by present methods time consuming and requires considerable expertise and is not possible without invasive methods.
The obtaining of a blood alcohol reading by the breathalyser technique will not give an accurate reading if the patient has only just finished consuming alcohol: the alcohol in the mouth distorts the reading.
The patient may have vomited or regurgitated as a consequence of the accident with the same effect or so that the patient cannot apply the breathalyser tube to his mouth. Or the patient may be unconscious so that a breathalyser reading may not be feasible.
The other present methods and equipment are more cumbersome and awkward to use so that they are, for the purpose of the present discussion irrelevant.